Journalist murder still unsolved 15 years on

It is fifteen years to the day that Russian investigative journalist Dmitry Kholodov, chasing a corruption story, was killed in his office. It was the first in a series of murders of journalists in Russia.

Dmitry Kholodov was only 27 when he lost his life. After just two years in journalism he had already made a name for himself with Moskovsky Komsomolets, one of Russia’s oldest and most popular newspapers. He was a harsh critic who investigated illegal deals in Russia's armed forces after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

On October 17, 1994, Dmitry received a call which directed him to a briefcase in a safety deposit box at Moscow’s Kazansky train station. The source claimed the briefcase contained exclusive compromising material.

The briefcase was booby-trapped with an explosive device powerful enough to derail a train. It went off as soon as Dmitry turned the key.

Ekaterina Deeva, the newspaper’s deputy editor-in-chief, was with Dmitry as he lay dying. She says the bomb was a warning to all journalists.

“Dmitry covered cases like the illegal selling of arms, pointing the finger at both high-ranking officials and smuggling soldiers. So his death pleased both those who ordered the crime and those who actually killed him,” she recalls.

The newspaper accused then-Defense Minister Pavel Grachev of ordering the crime, which Grachev denied, but he had publicly called Kholodov an “inside enemy” and put him on a blacklist of journalists.

The main suspects in the bombing – servicemen from Russia’s Spetsnaz – were charged but eventually acquitted.

“The investigation dragged on forever as high-ranking officials were involved. Prosecutors were swapped; some of the documents we presented simply went missing. The military tribunal proved to be a closed organization which has nothing to do with civil law,” says Pavel Gusev, editor-in-chief of Moskovsky Komsomolets.

The death of Dmitry Kholodov was the first in a series of high-profile journalist murders. Around half a year later, Vladislav Listyev, the head of Russia's Channel One, was shot. Journalism had become one of the most dangerous professions in Russia.

Paul Klebnikov, a Forbes journalist who investigated Listyev’s murder, was killed in 2004.

Then the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, shocked the world in 2006.

“When I show my reports from the nineties, my students cannot believe this stuff could have been aired on TV. Back then, we were all a little crazy. It was a risk, but it was romantic as well,” he says. “Nowadays, journalists are the service sector. They all want a big name – like Anna Politkovskaya – and a lot of money, but nobody is willing to risk their lives.”

Fifteen years after his death, Dmitry Kholodov is an icon at Moskovsky Komsomolets. The man, who was a symbol of honest, selfless journalism in Russia, may be considered a rare species nowadays.